Many years ago, my dad was touched by a song with the lyrics:
Like an old dusty road
I get weary from the load
He told me someday I’d understand why that song spoke to him as he grew older.
Today is one of those days. After eight and a half years of trying to keep a dream alive, I am suspending operations of my 2nd Act Players.
I have grown weary. The obstacles of the past year and a half have become too many and too difficult to conquer. And efforts to find new help — in the form of a next-level board of directors that would concentrate solely on fund-raising, have failed as well.
This is the second time a business dream of mine has died. In 1987, I started a newsletter publishing company that I hoped would grow into a business that would outlive me. But then, as now, I discovered that while I’m good at starting things, I don’t have what it takes to sustain and grow them beyond a certain level. That dream ended in late 1988.
Both then, and now with the theater, I realized my own shortcomings and searched out partners who had that ability, that salesmanship talent that I did not. But both times I’ve found it’s impossible to find others to share my dream. Most likely, they’re pursuing dreams of their own.
I will be in mourning for this for some time.
But I’m already looking beyond. I plan to get back to playwrighting, turning a one-act play I wrote in 2014 into a full two-act play.
If we can ever relaunch the 2nd Act Players, that’s the play we’ll begin with, a two-act version of Talking with My Dad.
The play is about a man who feels both lonely and afraid. As he awaits heart surgery, he talks with the ghost of his dead father, who died from heart disease.
I also hope to do some acting outside the womb of my own theater. While I already have agents who get me auditions for commercials and business films, I’m now seeking an agent who can get me auditions for the many TV shows and films in Chicago at the moment.
Doing that is a more daunting task than starting a theater.
The thought of all that makes me weary as well, so I need time to mourn now first.